Breakfast Souffles
by Hannah Tennant-Cumberbatch
Summary: In which the Doctor and Clara spend a lazy day in bed, discuss a morbid topic and make souffles for breakfast- as, let's face it, they taste good any time of the day. 11/Clara. Oneshot.


**A/N: Woah... I haven't posted anything in months! I'm so sorry about that! I've been so busy with school stuff and bleurghhh. My other stories may be updated soon, but idk... Anyway, here is a Clara/Doctor one-shot that I had to write because i'm so excited for series 7b!**

**On another note: I've been on fanfiction for a year now! Woo ^.^**

**Please favourite/review: it means so much to me!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who.**

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_**Breakfast Souffles**_

It was one of those lazy days: the days he spent in a mess sheets and legs and kisses with Clara Oswin Oswald. A day where they didn't save planets and civilisations or maybe just one person- well, he was allowed just one day, wasn't he? That wasn't too selfish? He was done with being selfish to the universe. Clara had shown him that.

She'd shown him so many things that he thought he'd never see again. How to care, for example. After suffering so many losses –too many- he'd thought it safer and less painful to not even begin caring in the first place than to care and feel the heartbreak when the inevitable end came. But, Clara… She'd shown him it was okay to care. It was okay to think that at some point things were all going to end, and that could be tomorrow or a lifetime away, but that didn't matter- what mattered was the here and the now. Not the future. Because right now, she was there. And she wasn't planning on leaving.

After all, what was the point of being alive when you weren't _living? _And you can only live when you've got someone by your side.

He traced her jawline with his thumb; rounded, soft edges which were so lovely to kiss and made the edges of her lips form the most adorable dimples when she grinned at him. He couldn't find fault with Clara, appearance or personality wise. Okay, sometimes she had a bit too much to say for herself, but it was so different to have somebody who kept up with him- maybe even a step ahead, sometimes. She was so intelligent, enthusiastic, diligent… Not that any of his other companions weren't, but Clara was in a diverse way. A way that made her more compatible with, well… Him.

He'd made it an unsaid, unmentioned rule that he didn't get intimately involved with anybody he travelled with; well, apart from River. But did she count? One, they didn't really travel together, never had. She just popped into his life when it suited her and kissed him occasionally. A kind of occasion he didn't want to keep up any longer. And, well… With Amy and Rory gone, it felt weird. Now he knew who River was, it was so odd to be around her and not think about her mother and father. Not have Rory's permission.

_No. Stop thinking about them._

Anyway, the 'no intimacy' rule kind of vanished as soon as Clara Oswald set foot in the TARDIS, along with pretty much every other rule that he'd created. The red wibbly lever had been pulled several times and she'd eaten more than a few pears within his proximity, probably just to annoy him. She did that quite a lot.

It was probably about the third day of them travelling together that she ended up in his bed- now, River hadn't even been there. None of them had; well, not in the way Clara and he had pursued. Usually he'd try and get out of the situation ASAP, but he found he didn't want to. He liked it and he'd missed the feeling of having someone so close to him he could smell her hair and feel her skin against his.

Her long, brunette hair cascaded in a sheet across his bare torso, her head resting on his right heart so she could hear it beating beneath her cheeks. His hand was hooked round her neck gently, keeping her firmly next to him. So she couldn't go abandon him and leave him alone. He didn't want to be alone right now.

He started when she spoke, seeing as he thought she was asleep. "Doctor?"

Her voice was thick with sleep, yet his was perfectly clear. Of course, he'd never fallen asleep. He had to keep an eye on Clara. "Yes, love?"

"There's been others apart from me, hasn't there?" she asked out the blue, as if she'd known what he was thinking. She had a habit of doing that.

The Doctor coughed, awkwardly shifting his position slightly. "What makes you say that?"

Clara altered her position so that her chin was resting on her hands on the Doctor's chest, so she could see into his eyes. "I was walking past my room in the TARDIS and I noticed some other rooms. They looked like bedrooms. Well, they had beds in."

Oh, trust Clara to be that observant and curious. And nosey. "Oh, well, yes. There has been a few, I suppose."

She raised an eyebrow. Clara Oswald never missed a trick. "A few?"

"More than a few. Several." he said, beginning to get flustered. "Does it matter?"

Clara had a look on her face which suggested _yes, it does matter, you one-thousand-year-old fool. _"Tell me about them."

"Why? They're in the past now, Clara. You're here now."

Clara laughed lightly. "I know that silly. I just want to know who I'm living up to."

His hand cupped her cheek, capturing her lips in a quick kiss. "You're not living up to anybody, Clara Oswin Oswald. How could you possibly? You're way stranger than any of my other companions."

Clara slapped him playfully making him yelp in mock hurt, before cuddling back into his chest in her original position. "You are daft. Just tell me a story, chin boy. I'm not saying all of them, just a few."

The Doctor sighed, giving up. He couldn't win, not anymore. "Fine, okay. If you insist."

"And I am insisting."

"I know you are!" the Doctor replied, making Clara giggle. "Okay. Right, well, there was Amy and Rory. They were travelling with me when you-"he reiterated his choice of words. Clara had come across Amy and Rory before, or had she? Or was that Oswin? Were they both the same person? _The only mystery worth solving. _"Before you came along. Brilliant, they were, my Ponds. Amy, I'd known for so many years. Well, sort of… It was complicated."

"So many years? You must have liked her."

The Doctor chuckled. "Yes, yes. I did. Of course I did. Did so much with Amy and Rory. Crashed their wedding day, kick-started the second big bang, rescued several dinosaurs on a spaceship, all the usual stuff. Nothing too exciting."

Clara laughed. "Goodness! No, no, just the norm. Dinosaurs. Can't think of anything more boring."

The Doctor laughed back, an almost unfamiliar feeling to him. It was only when Clara forced her way into his life that he actually thought he could find something worth laughing at again. "It was all quite tedious, I can assure you."

"I can imagine so." Clara assured. "What happened to Amy and Rory, then?"

She asked the question like it was the most insignificant question in the world, but when really it was the only question that pulled on his heartstrings. Or any question in that format except with a different name on the end. _Rose. Donna. Martha. Sarah. _The list could go on and on and it wouldn't get any less painful the further back in time he went. It all felt the same- cold. Isolated. Harsh, jagged pain which rips at your insides and left an impossibly large hole which could never be filled.

"Um, Amy and Rory… Yes. They're, well… They died. But not…" the Doctor inhaled and exhaled deeply, clearing his head. It never got easier. "They got transported back in time and lived in the past where I couldn't reach them. Dead now, from your perspective. Have been for a while. But they had a happy life together, but… Yeah. It's complicated."

"I understand." Clara said. Of course she did. "I know this is… Did many of your companions die? Not like Amy and Rory die, but like _die _die. Killed. Old age? I don't know."

_Yeah. You. Twice?_

"No! No, not many." he hesitated, "But… It does happen. Death follows me around, Clara, and that's something that I've had to face my whole life."

He mentally cringed when he said this next sentence, because he'd said it to so many people and it sounded so terribly cliché in his head but it just had to be said. "Not you, though. I won't let you die."

Clara laughed, despite the nature of his comment. "I'm afraid that's out of your control."

"It isn't. I won't let it happen." his voice choked down to a whisper. "I _can't _let it happen."

"You do your best to keep us safe, Doctor. With Amy and Rory and your other friends who you've lost or left or whatever. And that's all you can do." Clara smiled up at him. "And I can't possibly ask for more."

The Doctor smiled back at her. Oh, Clara. She said the right things all the time.

"Well!" the Doctor announced. "This is all getting rather morbid. I say we make breakfast!"

Clara giggled, stretching out her arms and sitting up in the bed. "I'm pretty sure it's the middle of the day. Or maybe it's the evening? I don't know."

"Who cares? We can have breakfast any time of the day in the TARDIS." he raised an eyebrow. "Breakfast soufflés?"

"Oh, you know how to spoil a girl." Clara winked and gave the Doctor a cheeky grin. "And you have to let _me _make them this time. I do not want another one of your weird space soufflés."

"What? Fish and custard soufflés are cool!" when he saw Clara's disapproving look he reluctantly took the comment back. "Fine. Maybe 'chocolate' ones are okay, then."

"Good!" to the Doctor's disappointment, Clara began to get out of bed and walk towards the door. He wouldn't mind an extra hour in bed. "I'll go make myself decent and get started."

"You already are decent!" the Doctor yelled out to her, "You're perfect!"

He heard footsteps and faint laughter in the corridor. "Shut up, chin boy!"

He relaxed back, a grin taking over his features.

You know that hole? That impossibly large one?

It was beginning to feel a little less large.


End file.
